LOOKING TO GET OUTSIDE? TRY SOME OF THESE SPORTS

As spring weather finally arrives, here's a look at one old-timer's all-time seven favorite sports to play. (This list does not include the most excellent pseudo sports of mini-golf, billiards and poker.)

Basketball -- Pick-up hoops played outside, full-court with call-your-own-fouls is easily No. 1 on my list. Nothing tops playing for hours and hours on a low-humidity spring or summer day, just running up and down, sweating and shooting and dribbling and, alas, forcing passes into the middle when nobody's open. I don't play much any more, but this was my greatest athletic joy, being that I was never good enough to make the high school varsity. Even in young adulthood, I would play often, and I don't recall ever walking away from a game as long as our team still held court by winning. But there was nearly an exception to that policy, and it occurred about 10 or 15 years ago while playing in a pick-up game at Dansbury Park in East Stroudsburg. The game was stopped in order for a drug deal to take place, at least that is my best guess as to what occurred. I was aghast, but I finished the game, our team lost, and I left.

Street hockey -- In the 1970s, many neighborhoods in southeast Pennsylvania had street hockey teams. We played in sneakers with crude equipment, many guys having no pads and just wearing regular winter gloves instead of expensive hockey gloves. And the goalie was exposed more than the Statue of David. But everyone played hard and hustled, fancying themselves as Bobby Clarke, our hero with the Flyers. Everybody also was physical, and there was plenty of rough stuff, although rarely did they deteriorate into fights. Street hockey was a very demanding game, and you had to be in super shape to last a game. Fortunately, many times we had enough guys to run shifts, especially on the front line, just like real hockey.

Slow-pitch softball -- A very pleasurable way to spend a summer afternoon or evening, eespecially when somebody brought beer for afterward. I remember many times arriving home very late, using the excuse that we decided to play a doubleheader.

Touch football -- The beauty was in the creativity of the play-calling. Everyone, of course, ran the down and out and up, and it almost always worked.

Tackle football -- It was very difficult to organize a game, but to a teenager or college student, tackle football was a blast, especially when you played on snow. In my neighborhood, every autumn a farmer would plow all of his fallen tree leaves into a massive three- or four-foot high pile about 200 feet long by 50 or 60 feet wide. We'd get about eight guys and climb on top of that pile and play tackle football all evening, into the darkness. We'd finally head home smelling like a forest, with all kinds of dirt caked on our clothes and skin, but at the time we weren't responsible for washing clothes. Or for getting a bath.

Golf -- When you're playing well, it's heaven on spikes. When you're not, it's nearly a waste of a lot of money.

Bowling -- Best done as a family event or while under the influence. But never, ever under both of those scenarios at the same time.